Gravity Park
by Draikinator
Summary: Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Butters, Kenny and Karen are sent by their parents to spend the summer with Stan's great uncle Stan in Gravity Falls, Oregon- where they meet the other kids staying with him at the Mystery Shack, Mabel and Dipper. Demons and Cthulu are involved!
1. Dawn

**Gravity Park**

_A South Park/Gravity Falls/Cthulu Crossover Fanfiction that you will regret reading_

* * *

><p><em>Preface! Alright. So we've all been talking about a South ParkGravity Falls crossover on tumblr for a few days now and sharing headcanons and I finally caved and decided to write it. This is mostly an introduction chapter, buuuUUuuuuuUuut I hope you enjoy it anyway, because you're reading south park/gravity falls fanfiction and if you've really sunk so low then you are probably as deep as i am in the shit by now and you. well, we can't really go lower at this point. so enjoy! or don't. whatever. i'm writing it anyway and you can't stop me neener neener neener_

_anyway more specifically, this takes place sometime after Sock Opera in gravity falls and after season 17 of South Park._

_We all know the treatment of Kenny's Special Position varies from fic to fic as it does episode to episode, so I'll just tell you up front: yes, he dies, no, no one remembers, no, he doesn't come back via his mom. he just wakes up in bed. it is a ~mystery~. now you know everything you need to. huzzah!_

* * *

><p>Kenny McCormick leaned his head against the window of the bus. The shake of the glass would have been annoying if the thick material of his hood wasn't cushioning the jarring vibration as the bus ran over unpaved backwoods roads, so he counted himself lucky to have it. He ran a hand through his sister's hair absently- she had her head in his lap, sitting beside him and totally passed out. The bus ride had taken over fourteen <em>hours<em>, and even though they were nearly there he wasn't in a rush to wake her, or Stan and Kyle, who were leaning against eachother in a way he suspected they would assure him was totally platonic later. Even Cartman and Butters were asleep in the seats across from him- though he wasn't sure how Butters could sleep with Cartman practically suffocating him by using him as a pillow.

He was actually fairly certain he was the only one on the bus other than the driver who was awake. He didn't like to sleep in unsafe places like buses or tents- especially not with his sister so near. He would much rather strengthen his odds of surviving the night with a roof over his head, and preferably a tazer jammed between the mattresses.

The trees passed him lazily behind the glass pane window, the sky growing brighter and pinker with the the sunrise. To be honest, he'd been glad when Stan's mother had suggested the trip. Summer was never a good season for his family- they were always on a budget, and without the free lunches the school provided and with the ever looming electricity bills to worry about, his parents were almost never in a good mood. No one had argued when he'd asked to bring his sister along with them to Stan's great uncle's house in Oregon- his friends had been annoyed, but the adults had just nodded knowingly.

Kenny hadn't actually known Stan had _had_ a great uncle, but Stan had groaned and sighed when they he had asked and told him that he did, in fact, have an aging great uncle Stan- whom he was named for. Someone they had all expected to die before he had gotten old enough to get their names confused at family reunions. This had not been the case.

Stan said he was Randy's mother's brother, and a real cheapskate. Apparently he was also taking care of some other relatives children this summer and when their parents had offered to send him a monthly stipend to take care of them, too, he'd been _more_ than happy to.

Kenny wasn't really concerned. South Park was dangerous, and he rarely regretted getting a chance to stay away from it and its shenanigans for a little while.

The bus slowed to stop beside a sign indicating they were in Gravity Falls, Oregon.

He nudged Karen awake and she slid out of the way sleepily so he could stand on the seats and pulls down their bags. Small bags- a few changes of clothes, basic toiletries, Karen's doll. They didn't have much. Not like Cartman, who had managed to rope Butters into carrying all three of his duffel bags in addition to Butter's own duffel and backpack. He gave Karen her doll, and she crushed it against her chest with one hand, taking his in the other as they stepped off the bus into the dim pink Oregon dawn.

There was an old man waiting for them, along with two brown haired children about his age, but obviously a bit older, that looked entirely unhappy to be there this early in the morning. The old man was asleep.

He must have been Stan's Grunkle Stan.

The girl jumped up immediately, her sleepy demeanor totally lost as she actually stood on the bench and ripped a knitted sweater from her backpack, "You're here! I made you _all_ sweaters! This is gonna be the best summer _ever!_"_  
><em>

The boy groaned beside her, looking exhausted, "Mabel..." he sighed.

"Shhh, Dipper, be nice. They're from _Colorado._"

"What does that have to do with anything?!"

She looked like she had a response ready, but Kyle cut her off, "Hey! I guess you're Mabel, then? And that's um- Stan's Grunkle Stan?"

Mabel snorted, "We have two Stans. This is gonna be fun."

The old man hadn't woken up yet, and Kenny wasn't sure if he should do something about that. Before he could decide, Dipper nudged him and he jumped up, startled.

"Huh? Wha? Oh! You're here. Great. Okay, well, we're really gonna have to squeeze to get you all in the Mystery Cart, but what is it you keep sayin', Mabel? Believe in yourself and you can do anything. Yeah. Sure. Alright, let's go."

Kenny picked his bag back up from the ground, following quietly while Mabel tugged a light blue sweater that looked to be about two sizes too big over Butter's head.

* * *

><p>Stan and Kyle had taken the spare bedroom downstairs, and after some goading, had agreed to let Karen stay in their room. He would much rather have her in a room that wasn't his- bad things tended to happen to him when he wasn't paying attention, things he would like to distance her from. Which left him in the basement with Cartman and Butters- which was honestly how he preferred it. Cartman was obnoxious and had been responsible for his injury on more than one occasion, but Kenny was probably the only one other than Butters who could tolerate him in large doses, and he had always liked Butters' company.<p>

Basements were also, usually, safer.

They'd all been ready for breakfast, tiny ten-year-old tummies rumbling when Mabel had suggested pancakes. Kenny was particularly excited about pancakes- actual pancakes, made from real batter with real butter and syrup that he could eat on an actual _plate_ that he wasn't supposed to throw away afterward.

Mabel, of course, refused to let them eat until she'd stuffed them each into a sweater. Stan's was a darker blue than Butters', Kyle's green, Cartman's red, Karen's pink (and distressingly large on her), and his was orange. She'd tried to convince him to take off his hoodie and replace it with the sweater ("How are you going to eat these deliiiiicious pancakes I'm making with your face covered like that, huh?") but he'd just quietly tugged it on over his hoodie. It wasn't that he disliked it- to the contrary, he loved new clothes, especially warm ones, and it _was_ his favourite colour, and it _was_ soft- but he really wasn't comfortable pulling his hood off around these strangers just yet.

"Holy _fuck_, these are good," Cartman said, face oozing syrup and stuffed full of pancake. Mabel gasped dramatically, flinging a pancake directly into the ceiling from her stepstool in front of the stove.

"Hey! None of that! Your parents told me to break you kids of your weird swearing habit. Keep it PG," Grunkle Stan said, blatantly annoyed but not nearly as alarmed as Mabel had been, before he returned to reading his paper.

Kenny may have taken more than his share of syrup, but he didn't really feel bad about this.

* * *

><p>"Kenny, dude, go back to your room, it's like fucking ten O'clock and none of us got any sleep last night."<p>

Kenny frowned and turned toward him, "Jesus, sorry dude, let me tuck my fucking sister in, okay?"

Stan groaned from his bed and covered his head with his pillow. Asshole. He turned back to Karen who was sitting up and looking at him.

He bopped her on the head lightly and she lost the worried look in her eyes with a giggle, sinking back down as he tugged the covers over her. She pulled her doll tighter against her on the cot and smiled, before whispering, "Thanks, Kenny," too quietly for Stan or Kyle to hear from their respective corners.

He just smiled back at her before ruffling her hair and standing to leave.

* * *

><p>Kenny leaned out of his "Mysterious Child Who Never Reveals His Face!" display to take a peek at Dipper, who was standing somewhat less than enthusiastically on a stage wearing wolf ears and making pathetic fake howling noises. The crowd took a few pictures and moved on past him- probably to Stan's begrudging fake medium act in the back.<p>

"Psst," he said, and Dipper looked up at him, startled, "This is really fucking boring."

"I, uh- I actually didn't realize you could talk," Dipper said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. Kenny shrugged and Dipper dropped his arm, "Yeah, it's... pretty, uh... _friggin_ boring. Yeah."

Kenny snorted, and Dipper's face lit up red.

"Hey! Shut up," he said, crossing his arms, "You can just talk to yourself then, jerk."

He raised his arms and shook his head, "No, come on, it's whatever," Kenny said apologetically, "What do you usually do for fun around here, anyway?"

"Fun?" Dipper repeated, looking up in thought, "Uh, I guess we usually just investigate the woods for weird mystery stuff, or go into town."

"You wanna ditch and go to town?"

Dipper looked at him, "Grunkle Stan'll be mad."

Kenny just smiled, and after a moment, Dipper returned it and hopped off the stage before helping Kenny over the tiny fence.

* * *

><p>"What's that?" It was a pretty simple question, but Dipper responded pretty violently, shoving the weird looking horn he was holding back under his vest a little too quickly and staring at him with alarmed, wild eyes.<p>

"What? What's what? Haha, nothing," He giggled, somewhat hysterically, and Kenny took a step back. Odd behavior made him nervous. Odd behavior made his hand itch to grab the tazer he'd shoved down the front of his pants, but he also didn't really think these people would take very kindly to his tazer and he really, _really_ didn't want to lose it, so he refrained.

"Th- the thing. The thing you were literally just holding."

"It's- It's, um..." Dipper's eyes darted around the room nervously, and Kenny decided now was probably a good time to leave the kitchen, even if he had been hungry- weird behavior was never a good sign for him and he was quite determined to survive the summer.

That was when a large, black pegasus with a glowing red horn came smashing through the window, whinnying like a screaming child and beating fire from its massive wings.

Kenny immediately dove under the table, the closest form of protection he could locate (he had, of course, scanned the room upon entering it, just in case something like this happened, because something like this _always_ happened) and grabbed Dipper by the back of his vest and _yanked_ him down and under the table with him.

The shrieking animal shot some kind of blast from its horn where Dipper had just been standing, blowing a cabinet to dust.

Kenny rolled away, behind it, towards the wall it had just made a sizeable hole in and pulled himself over it, ignoring the cuts and scrapes the jagged material was leaving behind. He was already running, looking back, waiting for the creature to reemerge- before he noticed that Dipper wasn't following him. He swore, loudly, and ran back, peaking over the hole. Dipper was still leaning against the table, and the unicorn thing was pacing around the kitchen, sniffing cabinets idly, but menacingly. Dipper looked like he was going to have a panic attack, huffing and puffing.

"Hey, asshole!" Kenny hissed at him, a little louder than he meant to. The unicorn looked at him sharply. "I'm gonna let it chase me, then you run, okay?"

"What?!" Dipper cried, hardly an acknowledgement, but the beast had made up its mind and beat its massive wings against the ground, even as its horn started glowing again. Kenny ducked, and the red blast of hot energy missed him. He was lucky that he managed to roll away from the wall before the horse crashed through it again, and he started running around the corner of the house. Stay out of line of sight- head for the woods where there was more tree cover-

The first shot took out his left arm. The damage was familiar, and didn't take long to assess- he'd lost everything below the shoulder, and there was still quite a bit of splintered bone attached. He had been lucky, though- the blast had been hot and had, for the most point, cauterized the wound. It had left some major burns down his side and up his shoulder, but at least he was less likely to bleed to death immediately. It hurt, but it would hurt a lot _more_ if he stopped running. So, he choked back a sob and stumbled forward, moving serpentine towards the treeline.

So much for surviving the summer.

He actually ran into the first tree he came to, his center of gravity totally ruined by the missing limb- not to mention the pain and blood loss was seriously disorienting. It took him a few extra seconds to slide himself off of it and keep going, and those few seconds were what cost him. The blast actually hit a _tree_ next to him, not _him_ specifically, but while the blast may have missed him, the tree itself did not.

He fell forward as it hit him, and he noted with dissatisfaction that it had likely snapped his spine- or at least ruptured something serious in that general area, but there was too much blinding, searing, white-hot pain to identify too specifically. He was pinned beneath it, unable to move his remaining arm. Probably the spine, then.

Through the roar of blood in his ears and the sound of the animals freakish nickering, he heard Dipper's voice chanting something in an unfamiliar language nearby- far too closee. He wanted to yell at him for being a fucking _idiot_, but there was a bright light and a popping noise, and the sound of much smaller hoofbeats as a goat trotted up past him and tilted its head, looking at him curiously._  
><em>

He whined in pain and confusion and moved his head weakly. Stupid. Did the horse thing turn into a goat? What the _hell_ just happened?

He didn't have very long to think about it, because it only took a few more seconds for everything to go dark.


	2. Water

Dipper nearly crumbled at the sight.

The goat was stumbling around happily, totally oblivious that it had just _killed_ one of the ten year olds that had been staying at the Mystery Shack. His name had been Kenny, and now he was crushed under a tree, missing an arm and soaked in blood and covered in scorch marks.

And dead.

A lot of terrible things had happened since he and his sister had arrived in Gravity Falls a month and a half ago- Mabel's puppet opera and the things Bill had done to him came to mind and made him shudder- but they had nothing on this. They had nothing on a child younger than _him_ crushed under debris and still smoking and leaking blood.

"No, no, no, no, no, _no_!" he cried, and his knees, trembling, made him turn. Made him run.

* * *

><p>He didn't stop until he was halfway to town, running along the side of the road in that direction.<p>

He stood next to a ditch in the loose gravel, and wondered what he was doing. He had been running- but he didn't know why.

Dipper looked at his hands. He was holding the horn- the cursed one, that he'd found buried in the woods and accidentally used to posses the goat, and the journal, bookmarked to the page about the Alicorn. He definitely remembered re-sealing its spirit back in the horn... and he remembered it breaking the wall of the kitchen- oh, no, Grunkle Stan was going to be _mad-_ and then... darkness. A gray, muddy fog he couldn't quite clear.

Alicorn breaks the wall. Kenny yanks him under the table. Climbs through the hole and outside. Comes back, yells something, runs away again. Alicorn follows him... He follows the alicorn... and he chases it into the woods, he seals it, and then... he sees something in the woods, and he runs.

But he couldn't remember what.

Not unusual. Some other mystery from the book to puzzle out later- but right now, he had more pressing matters. The horn needed to be buried, and they _really_ needed to fix the kitchen.

He turned around to walk back.

* * *

><p>Grunkle Stan was already standing in front of the burnt out kitchen, looking at the charred edges of the wall with dismay. Kenny stood next to him, looking sufficiently cowed. Dipper trotted up to them hesitantly, and Kenny waved vaguely at him. Dipper couldn't help but smile, relieved- the kitchen was bad, and, well, <em>seriously<em> bad, but no one had been injured, and everyone was _alive_, and at the end of the day he considered that a victory.

"Dipper! How am I supposed to eat like this?"

"Um, with an umbrella?" He suggested unhelpfully, and Kenny fell into a snorting fit of giggles on the other side of Grunkle Stan.

Grunkle Stan frowned sourly, before he opened his phone to call Soos.

* * *

><p>"There's no way."<p>

"You literally run a tent as a psychic medium in the Mystery Shack," Dipper said, crossing his arms. Stan rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, it's called cold reading, and it's the hokiest shit _ever_. It's fake as hell dude, none of that shit is real."

Dipper shoved the book back under his coat.

"Fine."

* * *

><p>Dipper leaned out the windowsill, "Kenny? What are you doing?"<p>

Kenny leaned back to look at him thoughtfully.

"Sunset," he said, muffled, "I don't always get to see it."

"Oh," Dipper said, climbing out behind him. He pulled the top off of the cooler he had left on the roof and took out a cola. It was chilled, but not really cold- the ice had long since melted to water. He offered one to Kenny, but he refused.

"What was with the horse thing?" Kenny asked after awhile, looking at his sideways, legs dangling off the edge.

Dipper sighed, "I found the cursed horn of an ancient mythological beast out in the woods, and its spirit possessed a goat and tried to kill me."

"Oh," Kenny said, looking back at the fading sunset, "That sucks."

Dipper raised an eyebrow, "That's it?"

Kenny shrugged nonchalantly, and Dipper took a moment to consider it. He wasn't excited to show him the book- not after the way Stan had shut him down, but he _had_ seen the Alicorn, so...

He pulled the book out of his vest, and Kenny turned to look at the motion. Dipper flipped the book open to the page with the Alicorn and offered it to him. Kenny took it, tracing the words detailing how to seal it with a gloved hand.

"Heh. Lazers. Yeah, the heads up on that one would have been nice."

Dipper cocked his head to the side, "Huh?"

Kenny shrugged again and handed him back the book, "The lazers. Hurt like hell."

"What? How would you know?"

Kenny sighed, "Ah. Sorry, thought you would have remembered the first shot. My bad." He turned back to the sun, which was mostly down by now, the warm reds and oranges bathing the navy blue landscape in the last tendrils of colour before the day ended and sank them all into darkness.

"Remembered what?"

Kenny didn't answer until the sun was all the way down, "You don't remember it, but that horse thing caught me in one of those blasts halfway to the woods. Took off an arm at the shoulder, and then I got crushed under a tree a little ways in before you got rid of it. I think I died pretty quick- but I might have passed out for a little, while, too. Hard to tell."

Dipper frowned, confused, "What? But you're-"

"Cursed." Kenny interrupted, without looking at him.

Dipper paused.

"Really?"

Kenny turned towards him faster than he'd seen him move in the three days they'd been in Gravity Falls.

"What?"

"So like, what, did you read some kind of cursed book or something? Is that why you wear your hood all the time? You're like a zombie under there?"

Kenny ripped his hood off his face.

He wasn't green, or oozy at all. If he was a zombie, he was a very clean one- pale skin, even if it was a bit more awkwardly tanned in the center, where his hood din't cover his face, a mess of uneven brown freckles, staticy, oddly bright blonde hair. Probably not a zombie. Even fresh ones weren't that clean.

"I'm not a zombie-" he said, almost panting, "I'm- I'm just, immortal. I guess. I get kill all the time and I wake up later and nobody remembers or _believes_ me, but it _happens._ It's _real_, I'm not-" he stopped, eyes furrowing, "I'm not _lying_."

"I believe you, dude," Dipper said, and it was like flipping a switch. The passive, reserved demeanor his ten year old friend had been exhibiting up until that point was totally lost, replaced by an excited fervor- actually, he looked like he was going to cry.

"You do?" He asked, and Dipper just nodded as Kenny rubbed his eyes with his sleeves, pulling his legs up over the side and against his chest. He handed him a cola, and Kenny popped it open gratefully before taking a sip.

"So... that book. Is that like... like a Necronomicon or, whatever?"

Dipper shook his head, "Not sure what that is. It's like a journal, and the author put a bunch of stuff in here about mysteries and monsters and stuff in Gravity Falls. This place is really weird."

"Can I see?" Dipper brightened, and handed him the book and his flashlight.

* * *

><p>"I found something in the journal last night- the author had another bunker under the lake. I'm pretty sure the entrance is actually on that little island, and I was gonna get Soos to drive us out there today. Anybody wanna come with?" Dipper asked, shoving a forkful of syrup laden pancakes in his mouth.<p>

"Ooh, me, me, me!" Mabel cried predictably, throwing her hands in the air.

Butters started to nod, but Cartman looked at him dourly, "Hell no. Me and Butters have stuff to do today that _isn't_ totally fucking lame." Grunkle Stan whapped him with a newspaper, to which Cartman responded with a high pitched whine.

"Sure, sounds fun," Kyle said brightly, and not-Grunkle Stan shrugged, which Dipper assumed was agreeably.

Kenny was nodding at him excitedly, and so was his sister.

"I wanna go! Kenny, can I go?" She said, looking up at him, and Dipper was ready to say sure, why not, when Kenny shook his head firmly.

"It's not safe," he said, "Stay here and watch TV. They have like, a million channels."

Dipper paused, pancakes halfway to his mouth. That had been the responsible answer. Obviously it would be dangerous. It was always dangerous. He hadn't even considered it, though, and he was two years older than the other boy.

Why had Kenny considered the risk before he had?

* * *

><p>"Okay, everybody got their equipment?" There were a lot of nods, but he wasn't getting off the boat without a better confirmation. "Flashlights?" He said, and after a bit of scrounging, the group all raised their flashlights. "Weapons?" They raised their baseball bats, "Whistles?" this time they all blew their whistles shrilly, obnoxiously. "Okay, okay, geez..."<p>

"Alright, can we go already?" Stan said, dropping his whistle.

Dipper nodded, "Yeah, but let's stay as a group. You never know what you're going to run into in Gravity Falls."

"Better not be any _fucking_ leprechauns..." Kyle whispered under his breath, much to Dipper's confusion, but he didn't question him, before tugging up the hood of his poncho and hopping off the boat onto the firm sand of the tiny fishing lake island.

"okay, out by where we found those beavers- and the giant mechanical sea monster- last time we were here, there's supposed to be a big manhole off in the tree line with some kind of puzzle in it."

"Like a rubik's cube?" Mabel prompted.

"Prrrrobably not," he said, and Wendy snorted.

"I hope not," she said, "I suck at those things."

"Alright! Anyway!" Dipper said, turning towards the tree line, "Let's get moving. We're losing daylight, people!"

"Hardly," Kyle said behind him, and Dipper heard Stan agree with him. He ignored them and their poor attitudes, however, and marched through the animal path he remembered in the woods towards where the map was leading him.

The sky fell away above them, blocked out by mist and tree cover. The woods out here were so eerily quiet, and he was glad he had brought a large, loud group. It was reassuring.

He stopped when he saw that bent tree drawn in the journal.

"Okay! It's around... here, somewhere. It's probably buried, but if we-"

"Found it!" he heard Kenny say, and turned.

Well. He certainly had. Kenny was standing on a large metal manhole with a round wheel on top, covered lightly with pine needles. How had he missed that?

"Hey, nice one, Kenny," Stan said, high fiving him as Wendy walked over to prod it with one shoe gently.

"Alright, there's a puzzle here, on top," Dipper said, trotting over to look at the wheel, which had rings of pictographs in sub circles within it, "and we need to riddle it o- what are you doing?" He said, eyes widening as Kyle pulled a crowbar out of his backpack and jammed it into the seam between the manhole cover and the rim.

"Riddling out the puzzle," Kyle said, throwing his weight against the crowbar. The aging melt shrieked and the door flipped upward, shedding dust and rust in its wake.

"...Uh... that works, too, I guess," He said, rubbing the back of his head. He'd been studying the puzzle all night in the journal and had been excited to actually try and open it, but, it was too late now.

He moved towards the ladder, excitedly, but Kenny nudged past him.

"I'll go first," he said, quietly, and no one moved to stop him. He paused, that was a good point. He _was_ immortal, supposedly, so it was only logical he went first. Ah- but he'd said no one believed him. He looked at Stan and Kyle, who were watching him without protest.

He didn't like that.

After a moment, he followed Kenny down, going second. Wendy pushed past Stan and Kyle, and went after him. Stan went before Kyle, and after Kyle, finally, Soos. It was a long trek down, in the darkness, and he wished he had an extra hand to pull out his flashlight, but he didn't dare let go of the ladder.

"Hang on," Kenny voice floated up below him, and he stopped on the ladder, calling up to Wendy to pause.

There was a beat, and then, the tube they were in lit up. Kenny was a few meters below him, one arm hooked around the ladder, the other zipping his backpack as he held the flashlight in his teeth. Dipper shivered- the position he was in was precarious, and Dipper never would have chanced it. Kenny flashed him an okay symbol with one hand before grabbing the flashlight and continuing downward.

He called up to Wendy it was okay to move.

It wasn't much longer before they reached the end- and the tiny tube they'd climbed down opened into a massive under ground cavern, moist and cold, and the floor had at least a standing foot of murky water in it. He was glad for his vest but sad he hadn't thought to bring boots.

He pulled his flashlight out of his backpack, and shined it around the room.

"Wow," he couldn't help but say. This was more of a lab than a fallout shelter- it lacked the food storage the bunker in the woods had had, but had even more strange equipment. He ran a hand over a computer bank, moist, cold, and obviously out of commission.

"Hey, dudes, look at this," Soos said, behind him, and he turned with his flashlight in the direction of his voice. He could have sworn he saw something move in the far back, but it was so quick, it could have easily been the shadows moving along the uneven walls. Even so, he was cautious, and stayed wary of his surroundings, moving to Soos, who was inspecting a briefcase- the waterproof kind, oddly enough- sitting on a desk beside another ruined computer bank.

"What is that?" Dipper said as Soos flipped open the locks on either side, and the top sprang open. Inside, there was a stack of papers, covered in letters and drawings.

"Hey, jackpot!" Wendy said behind him, leaning over to see inside.

"What is it?" Stan asked, but just as he did so, the briefcase snapped shut, a glistening, amorphous hand clenched on top of of. Dipper jerked his flashlight up into the creature's face- an enormous beast that appeared to be made of nothing but water, swaying in and out of a consistent form. It did however, smile at him, before jerking itself forward toward him.

He took took in a sharp breath, reaction time slow, before someone jerked him back- Kenny, again, he suspected, who's startling reaction time made sense now- and just barely out of the way. The creature hit the wall behind him, splashing like a water balloon and exploding, before the droplets recondensed into a single form.

"That's _mine_," it hissed at him, "_Everything here is mine!"_

"Run!" yelled Soos, who had grabbed the briefcase in a panic and made a mad dash for the stairs. Stan and Kyle were quick to follow, but Wendy stopped to swing at it with her bat. The weapon went straight through it, sending water everywhere. The water beast cackled in a way that made Dipper uncomfortable and dove forward, grabbing Wendy up inside it like she was a cherry in a jell-o mold.

"_Wendy!_" Dipper screamed, horrified, dropping his bat and running forward. Her arms waved wildly inside it, and the beast made a move for him that he didn't even try to avoid, taking a deep breath and diving in after her as she scrabbled at her throat desperately. He had enough momentum the when he grabbed her hand, he kept going, straight through it, and yanked her out with him. They both went skittering into a heap against the far wall behind it as it sloshed against the floor, startled.

"Hey!" Dipper heard Kenny yell from the other side of the room, and looked that way, sputtering and coughing, to see Kenny holding a few beakers in one hand, dusty, and something small and black in the other.

"Look, I've got your shit!" Kenny continued, waving the beakers madly. He gestured violently toward the ladder with the hand holding the black thing, and Wendy grabbed Dipper's hand, pulling him to his feet. They scrambled for the exit.

The creature dove for Kenny, water crashing against his feet in a wave, and he hit the floor chin first with a sickening thunk. Dipper paused before the ladder to yell at him to hurry up and follow.

"Shut up! I'll come back, fucking _go_, asshole!" Kenny yelled, even as red poured from the fash in his chin and his mouth where he had no doubt bitten his tongue, based on the slur in his voice. He shoved himself shakily to his feet, and Dipper grabbed the first run of the ladder and hauled himself off the floor just as Kenny shoved the crackling tazer he'd been holding into the water beast.

He had expected something more dramatic, but the beast just melted like it had lost all control of its corporeal form. More dramatically, Kenny had spasmed violently and gone still in the foot deep water below.

_I'll come back,_ he had said. The water rippled below him, the beast probably reforming already, and he made the judgement call to trust his new friend, tearing up the ladder as quickly as his tiny arms would carry him.


	3. Parka

He woke up still feeling moist and sore, and ached for a nice, long, _warm_, shower. It was a beat before he realized that was actually something he could have- the Pines had plenty of hot running water, and no one had told him to ration it, yet... Kenny threw off the covers and padded barefoot towards out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom.

The hot water felt amazing. He turned it up as high as it would go, even though it burned against his skin- just another welcome reminder that his skin worked, that he existed, that he was alive. He may not have been thirty minutes ago, but he was now.

It scalded his skin and left it hot and red and tingling uncomfortably, and eventually he turned it down to a manageable temperate and actually washed his hair.

He wasn't going to tell Mabel he was using her shampoo. It was strawberry scented but he'd be fucked sideways if that wasn't a better smell than the inside of an unwashed hoodie. Plus, he just liked strawberries.

* * *

><p>He ran into Dipper again at lunch, as he was spreading mayonnaise on a turkey sandwich. He'd stared at him long, and hard, and Kenny eventually raised an eyebrow.<p>

"What?"

"Did you... did you _die_?" Dipper said finally, and Kenny dropped the knife.

"Huh?"

"Did you _die_? Down there?" Dipper repeated.

"I- uh- y-yeah," he stammered, trying to pick up the butterknife and play it cool, but that was hard to do with his hands shaking the way they were.

"I just... we closed the manhole after I came up, and we didn't see you come out after you zapped that thing... how'd you get out of there, anyway?"

"I just kinda... wake up in bed. After," he said, uncertain, somewhat uncomfortable, in uncharted territory.

"Oh. That's kinda handy."

"Y- yeah." He agreed, and finally managed to get a grip on the butterknife's handle.

* * *

><p>His chest still hurt- a familiar pang, reminding him of how he'd drowned earlier. The ache in his lungs would need a few more hours before it would dull totally and leave him, and in the meantime he was craving the usual comfort of a cheese or a Pabst- but the Mystery Shack wasn't really accommodating of either of those things, and he found himself frustratingly sober, dealing with the lingering pains.<p>

He found himself pulling open the window to the roof of the Mystery Shack again- the sun was setting soon, and he had been so lucky to survive to see it again. It was, climbing out the window, that he realized that he wasn't alone.

"Dipper?" He said, pulling himself onto the roof. Dipper looked up at him, leaning back against the roof and hunched over his journal, scribbling. Dipper looked up at him in surprise.

"Huh? Oh, hey man. Sunset again?"

Kenny nodded, and closed the window behind him, taking the soda Dipper was already handing him. He went back to scribbling, and Kenny cocked his head to the side.

"What are you writing?"

Dipper looked up at him, and blushed. Actually _blushed. _Kenny raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"I- there's some blank pages in here for other mysteries, and I- I just, I mean-"

Kenny frowned, "What?"

"I just- I mean- I put in new entries when I find new weird stuff that's not already in here, and, I mean- you-"

"He's putting in a page about _you_, dummy!" Mabel's voice called from down below. Kenny crawled to the edge of the overhand to look down at her. She was waving up at him, standing next to Butters, who was kneeling down and petting Waddles thoughtfully.

"Me? What's mysterious about _me_?" He called down, gripping the edges of the shingles. Oh, god, Butters hadn't told them about Mysterion, had he? He better not have- otherwise Professor Chaos was in _big_ trouble. She put her hands on her hips and laughed.

"He thinks you're immortal, silly!" She knelt down and picked up Waddles and started to walk back inside. Butters turned to look up at him.

"Sorry, buddy, I know you're still goin' on about that a lot- we, uh, we all believe you, and all."

He followed her inside, and Kenny leaned back against the wall, popping open the soda and taking a long, thoughtful sip. Dipper had stopped drawing, and looked mildly ashamed.

"It's fine, you know," Kenny said, after a minute, noting that the sky was starting to get dark, "I don't mind."

Dipper looked down at the book, then offered it to him silently. Kenny took it, scanning the page.

It was actually a decent drawing of him. There wasn't a lot of information- his name, that he was from Colorado and had a sister- that he woke up in bed after. He handed it back.

"You know, you could have just asked," he said after a minute, the sun dipping down against the horizon, "It's not a secret or anything."

"...Does it happen a lot?" Dipper asked, finally breaking his awkward silence.

"At least twice a week. Less now, than awhile back. Used to be every day, almost."

"What's it like? After, I mean."

Kenny grimaced, "Everything after sucks."

Dipper looked cowed, and shut the journal just as the sun finished going down, leaving them in darkness.

"Does it hurt?" He asked after a while. Kenny finished off the can and squished the metal, crushing it as much as his tiny hand could.

"Every time."

* * *

><p>Dipper had taken over the kitchen table, papers spread out, crisscrossing eachother, nearly spilling off the sides. Mabel was standing next to him, and Butters was standing next to her. Kenny was just trying to make a sandwich (his third that day, but don't judge), but Dipper waved him over. He trotted to the table, taking in the papers. It took a moment to recognize them- they were the ones from the suitcase they'd taken from the underwater base.<p>

"Hey, Kenny- check this out," Dipper said, pointing to a paper as Mabel nodded furiously.

Kenny leaned in to look at the paper Dipper was pointing at. It detailed a pretty complicated looking diagram of a machine, covered in odd runes- unfamiliar ones, definitely not the kind he had seen in the Necronomicon.

"What's it do?"

"I'm still working on translating the cipher here, but I _think_ it's supposed to open up some kind of portal to another _reality_."

"What if it's a reality where everything is made of _popsicles!?"_ Mabel blurted out, eyes sparkling with desire. Dipper grinned and rolled his eyes.

"Gosh- that would be _incredible_," Butters said, going as starry eyed as Mabel, twisting his hands together, before frowning, "That sounds real cold though... my Hawaiian blood just couldn't take that, I think."

"I don't think we gotta worry about popsicles," Dipper laughed, "But I haven't figured out where it's supposed to open yet. Like I said, still translating." He waved at the other piles of papers spread out on the table, "There's a lot to go through."

Kenny sat down to help.

* * *

><p>The sun was setting, and Kenny found himself on the roof again. He was a little disappointed to be watching it alone- he'd been watching it with Dipper fairly regularly now, but Dipper was inside still diligently translating and deciphering the texts he'd recovered.<p>

He was enjoying the warm reds of the sunset when suddenly, they went grey.

The colour washed from the world, immediate and cold. Kenny grabbed for his tazer, the cold sense of realization dripping down his spine as he remembered it hadn't respawned with him- he was weaponless, unprotected. His hand clenched into a white knuckled fist, and he backed up to the wall- and backed into something else.

"Whoa, kid, watch it!"

Kenny reeled back, and nearly tipped over the roof, scrambling to regain his footing as he stared at a _weird_ floating triangle with a single eye and a top hat.

"What the fuck do you want?" Kenny hissed, hand feeling empty and naked without _something_ to hold and pin his hopes for survival on. With each passing second this encounter was feeling more and more deadly.

"Whoa-ho-ho-hooo, kiddo, watch the language there! Come on, Parka, I'm just here to talk! The name's Bill Cipher."

Kenny did not stand down.

"Are you one of the fucked up things from Dipper's book?" He asked cautiously. The triangle laughed, pressing it's tiny noodle arms against its... 'stomach' in mock hilarity.

"What, Pinetree? Oh, yeah, we've met. Coupl'a times, actually! We're good buddies." The triangle snapped its fingers, d a sock puppet that looked oddly similar to Dipper appeared, hovering just near the triangle. It grabbed it in an overenthusiatic hug, "_Buddies._ You could say we're inseparable!"

The puppet vanished and the triangle floated lower.

"He's never mentioned you," Kenny said warily- but the triangle hadn't made any aggressive moves so far, and Dipper _had_ been hesitant to show him even the _journal_- if he had a weird floating triangle friend, he may not have wanted to mention that either.

"Parka- Kenny McCormick, age 10, born to Carol and Stuart McCormick in South Park, Colorado, C+ average fourth grade student at South Park Elementary School, going into Fifth this year, Living pretty far below the poverty line- and pretty curiously, _immortal_, huh?"

Kenny was back on guard immediately.

"What the _fuck_? Why do you _know_ that stuff?"

"I gotta know who my buddy Pinetree's spending his time with! So I did a little _digging_," the triangle snapped his fingers again, and found himself holding a shovel instead of a cane, "and found out a bit about you, Parka! Gotta say, the immortal thing sure is _curious!_ But you don't seem too happy about it, do you?"

"Shut up, dude, that's none of your fucking business."

The triangle's cane returned and it spun upside down with a whine, "Come on, Parka, you don't gotta be so rude! I wanna help you!"

"You can't help me."

"Oh, but I can!" The triangle righted itself quickly. "I can take your immortality away from you."

Kenny's mouth went dry.

"What?"

"I can take it away! Just, poof, gone. You don't have to deal with it anymore. Just like that."

"Wh- you- Seriously? That's a thing you can fucking do?"

"It is!"

"What do you want?"

"Nothing at all, Parka. I just wanna help out our dear mutual friend Pinetree, who has seemed oh-so-worried about you."

Kenny stopped, considering.

"Just... like that?"

"Just like that! To be honest, you're whole immortality thing is probably messing up reality anyway, so you'll probably be doing everyone a favour."

"I will? Do you... wait, do you know why I'm immortal?"

"Not a clue, Parka! It sure is an anomaly. One I can _totally_ take off your hands."

Kenny rung his hands together, then stood up straight.

"Fuck it, _please_, please take this shit from me."_  
><em>

"I am _happy_ to, Parka," Bill said, extending a slender black hand. Kenny took it hesitantly, with a deep intake of breath.

And immediately regretted it when their hands burst into blue flame. The triangle's face shifted from casual to horrifying in an instant, and it moved backward quickly, too quickly, ripping his forward- forward without something. He wen t spinning out of control, out of _gravity_, and when he finally righted himself and turned around, the triangle was huge and red and laughing.

"HAH, you humans sure are _stupid_!" it laughed, and shrunk back down to its regular size, spinning around to face... him? Kenny stared at his hands- his clear, see through hands. he'd been a ghost before, and this was not a totally unfamiliar feeling- but this was different. This was _wrong_. His body was still standing on the roof.

"Huh?" Bill said, staring at his body. Kenny took this to mean something was wrong- was it not supposed to be there? Should it have crumpled? Was that blue fire supposed to burn it up? What just happened?

Bill nosed forward hesitantly, then more quickly, moving aggressively toward Kenny's body.

"Hey-" he managed to cry, darting forward- but he came to a screeching halt when his body's arm jerked up, striking the triangle and sending it flying through the air at least two meters with a cry of surprise.

It didn't move for a second, then it looked up, jerkily, unnaturally, with _yellow_ eyes that made Kenny recoil. What the _fuck_?

"_Bill!_ Long time, no see," Kenny's body purred, in his voice, as it tugged his hood off.

"Wha- who the heck are _you_?" the triangle said, righting itself.

"Oh, no, you don't remember me? I'm sure you remember my _brother_. Well, Bill, I'm very sorry to disappint, but this vessel is already... occupied."

His body made eye contact with him. Cold, terrifying eye contact. Kenny shrank back, floating away.

"Wait... Oh no, wait, you're not-" Bill said, sounding more and more frustrated.

"Hastur? Oh, but, I am. I am, I am, I am. I gotta thank you," it said as it floated up off the ground, leaking black tendrils from the bottoms of its jacket and sleeves, the corners of its hood- between the teeth of its zippers, "for pulling that kid out of here so I could wake up. It _has_ been awhile, and I have _so_ missed Shugg."

It smiled menacingly, cold, dark, uncomfortable, and distinctly _not him_ and Kenny was sure if he'd had a body he would have wet himself by now in a sheer panic.

"No fair! I won that body fair and square!" The triangle accused, pointing a slender finger at the terrifying nightmare demon his body was morphing into, tendrils consuming it in bright yellows and unnaturally dark blacks- even as his face remained unchanged.

"It was mine before it was yours. Besides, I hear my brother is awake- if he's still trapped in R'lyeh. I may just... need to do something about that." His smile spreading wider, pushing his cheeks to far apart, and Kenny was nearly ready to duck under the roof when the darkness and tendrils rose up around him suddenly, consuming him, before they vanished.

"Man, that sucks for you, kid," The triangle laughed, before sighing, "Sucks for me, too, though. Oh well! See you around, maybe."

The triangle vanished too, leaving him alone in the dark.


End file.
